


B for Blindfolded (E for Elephant)

by tangentiallly



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Blindfolds, Consensual, Don’t copy to another site, Hair ribbon, Light Bondage, M/M, brief cameos of dewey and kit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 19:47:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19235890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangentiallly/pseuds/tangentiallly
Summary: "You know, if you don’t stop that, I’m going to start blindfolding you in bed.""You’ll what?""Hmmm, you might actually appreciate that. Dewey mentioned you like that poem about blind people and elephant.""... are you the elephant in this scenario?""Well, if you want me to be.""Well, I suppose that certainly isn't an unfitting metaphor."





	B for Blindfolded (E for Elephant)

**Author's Note:**

> please don't copy this story to another site
> 
> disclaimer: I don't own ASOUE
> 
> previously posted [on tumblr](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com/post/185624708916/) and i thought i'd pieced them together and put into a fic
> 
> Dewey Denouement, an intellectual: It's like the elephant in the poem your father loved. Everyone has their hands on a tiny piece of the truth, but nobody can see the whole thing.  
> me, chaotic neutral: ....... B for Blindfolded and E for Elephant

**[ 1 - Bedside Manner ]**

 

Bertrand had always had the habit of reading things in bed, sometimes just under dim light, lying on his side, flipping some important document rather than getting up to read it at a desk or whatever. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that this probably wasn't good for his eyes, but it was hard to break the habit.  When he'd been with Jacques, J would sometime say  "stop doing that or I’ll confiscate your glasses" to which B always just countered easily "no you won’t because then I’ll be squinting at the documents, which I heard is bad for the eyes. Surely you don’t want that."

Perhaps he should've realized Ernest Denouement would be a little different. Perhaps he should've also realized that a fancy hotel would have a lot of things, including blindfolds easily accessible by the hotel managers.

Right now, Ernest was eyeing Bertrand speculatively a few feet apart from the bed in the middle of the hotel room. "You know, if you don’t stop that, I’m going to start blindfolding you in bed," he drawled.

Bertrand's attention snapped away from the book he was reading. "You'll _what_?"

"Hmmm, you might actually appreciate that," Ernest said, rather thoughtful. "Dewey mentioned you like that poem about blind people and elephant." 

Bertrand put his book down, and turned slightly, propping himself up to look at Ernest and raising an eyebrow. "... are you the elephant in this scenario?"

Ernest smiled, charmingly. "Well, if you want me to be."

Bertrand's eyes slowly gave the other man a once over, his lips quirking up slightly. "Well, I suppose that certainly isn't an unfitting metaphor."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

 

* * *

 

**[ 2 - Blindfold ]**

 

E walked into the room to find there were books and papers stacked up high on the small table beside the bed. Those felt like a challenge, an invitation, a start to a game they were about to play.

"I must say whatever you lack in subtlety you do make it up with …. passive aggressiveness," Ernest commented. There was something in the way that he said 'passive aggressiveness', an underlying amusement and awe mixed together in a delightful combination.

Bertrand felt his lips almost pulling up to a helplessly fond smile, but he carefully hid his face behind the books.

This was, after all, a game.

A thrill.

"I’m glad I came prepared," Ernest said again once he realized that he was being deliberately ignored. His voice sounded prim and sly at the same time. “But I’ll give you a chance to put that book away in the …. next three seconds?”

Obviously, Bertrand couldn’t do that. First of all, because this was a game, and certain selected actions led to certain selected results, and to get to the desired results, one must play the actions required; second of all, it would be hard to school in his smile into the total expressionless that seemed more fitting with the "passive aggressiveness" that Ernest just mentioned in less than three seconds.

Three seconds passed.

Then another.

The hotel manager moved towards the bed, then snatched the book away swiftly, throwing it onto the ground.

“Dewey would be appalled at the way you threw that book,” Bertrand said, with what he hoped was the perfectly calculated measure of disinterest. 

“What Dewey doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Ernest shrugged, then added, slyly. “Unless you want to explain to him the situation that led me to throwing that book.”

Bertrand rolled his eyes. Ernest laughed. The kind of laugh that sounded free and openly delighted, not the practiced kind he gave in front of hotel customers.

It was all just a game, playful and calculated, until Ernest sat himself down on the bed and took out the blindfold. Suddenly, Kit’s opinions of distrust and what Frank had mentioned about their sibling fights rang an alarm inside his head and Bertrand felt himself freeze. Something which apparently didn’t go unnoticed.

"Hey," Ernest swallowed, sounding suddenly nervous. "We don’t actually have to do this if you. Don’t want to or whatever. But like, you know you can trust me, despite what Kit Snicket says, right?"

"Uh," Bertrand said, unsure of what to say.

"I mean, maybe you can’t trust me on everything, or on more important VFD matters, and that’s fair – I get it. But you can trust me not to hurt you or have some secret agenda against you. I’m not going to – I mean – I like you, alright?"

 _I like you too_ , Bertrand thought, automatically. Kit’s voice tried to say something in his head, but he firmly pushed that away.

"I know you like to be careful about things so if you decided you don’t want to risk it, I get it.  Say the word and we’ll call this off."

 _If you decide you don’t want to risk it, I get it._  Bertrand was suddenly remembering Kit saying that Dewey said that Frank was unwilling to share some critical VFD mission information with Ernest because he didn’t exactly trust him to not share with his friends that Frank disliked and suspected of switching sides.  Suddenly the sentence Ernest just said sounded a lot like _"if you decide you don’t trust me just like my brother doesn’t trust me, I get it"_ and that sounded a lot more – resigned.

And maybe this was some manipulation tactic or whatever but it really, really didn’t feel so. And Ernest was right, he could at least trust him on not to intentionally hurt him or anything.  Sometimes – sometimes not everything was about VFD or the schism.

He briefly debated with himself internally, then decided on what to do.  He hoped he wouldn’t come to regret it.

"Stop rambling and just get on with it," he gestured at the blindfold and said briskly. "Thought you had some lesson regarding eye care you want me to learn?"

Ernest blinked, and then he looked less tense as he raised an eyebrow slightly, and suddenly they were both back in the game mode again.

"Why yes, I do."

 

* * *

 

**[ 3 - Dewey ]**

 

Dewey turned the keys, opening the door to a room he thought was unoccupied, and then stopped suddenly when he pushed the door halfway open.  He widened his eyes at the sight in front of him. His brother. His best friend. The blindfold.

"Uh. I’ll just. Leave. Please pretend i’m not here," he said, petrified.

While Bertrand couldn't see, and the three triplets all had the same voice, he also knew that Frank didn't say stuff like "please pretend I'm not here" (or "please" in general), so it must be Dewey whose voice just came from the door.  He sighed, "thought you said you locked the door."

Ernest protested. "I  _did_ , it’s just that my brothers both have keys that open every door."

Bertrand rolled his eyes behind the blindfold, and wondered if Ernest could see the movements of the eyeballs behind the blindfold. Perhaps he did, as he leaned in closer and whispered. "I'll make it up to you."

At the same time, Dewey was backing out of the room and locking it again in high speed. "Anyway I’m leaving."

Ten minutes later, he was on the phone with Kit. "So guess what i just saw today."

 

* * *

 

**[ 4 - Kit  ]**

 

Kit grinned at them, sharp and amused at the same time, and showed them her phone.  Bertrand saw his number on the screen, and the name for the number was saved as "B for Blindfolded".  He glared at Kit, who smirked back at him.

Ernest throw an arm around his shoulders. "Don’t worry love, we’ll steal books from Dewey as revenge," he promised.

 

* * *

 

**[ 5 - Clock ]**

 

It was late, already past one in the morning. But since Ernest had been on night shifts previously and was still feeling wide awake, and Bertrand had developed a bit of night owl tendencies recently, neither of them were preparing to sleep anytime soon.

"Hey, I want to show you something," Ernest said out of the blue.

"Oh?" Bertrand turned to look at him, an intrigued expression on his face.

Ernest threw him a blindfold. "Put these on."

Bertrand looked skeptical. "And here i thought you want to show me something," he pointed out.

Ernest grinned slowly, "you’ll ….. find out later. Anyway, put it on."

After the blindfold was put on, Ernest led Bertrand out of the room, and then came a series of elaborate steps through corridors and elevators and other paths.

"Is it just my imagination, or have we really been going up all the time?" Bertrand inquired amicably.

"When i’m with you i’m almost always up all the time," Ernest said cheerfully. "But anyway, we’re almost there, ok, slouch down a little we’re passing through something" he opened a door with a key "… ok keep going …. here we are."

Bertrand gestured at the blindfold, "Can I take these off now?"

In a nonchalant voice, Ernest replied, "not until you figure out where we are - in the mean time, let’s have a little fun." He paused. "Unless you want to take a guess right now?"

Bertrand considered, and said, "Well, i do have a suspicion, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun for a while." He smiled his usual polite smile, which really wasn't any less attractive just because of the blindfold above it.

Ernest stared at the smile for a moment, and swallowed.  "That’s … a sensible answer."

A few seconds later, Ernest cleared out some space for Bertrand to sit down, and another few seconds, he'd helped him slide out of his trousers and briefs. Another few seconds, he was down on his knees, skillfully diving his head in between Bertrand's legs.

Time passed by a little differently after that, everything moving slow at first, and then everything was accelerating, to an exhilarating speed. Bertrand came just as the hotel clock struck “wrong”, and then - perhaps 10 seconds later, perhaps more -

"Are we  _inside the clock?_ " Bertrand asked, incredulous. He wasn't exactly sure, but the way the clock strike sounded and resonated felt different and much louder and vibrating than it had sounded many times before when he'd heard it in just a room in the hotel. It seemed the only logical answer.

"Oh yes very good," Ernest said, breathy yet smug. "You can take the blindfold off now."

 

* * *

 

**[ 6 - Ribbon ]**

 

_Before_

As Bertrand put on the blindfold, Ernest said, "Wait - on second thought, perhaps you should take the ribbon out of your hair, as you’ll be lying down. Don’t want you to get uncomfortable."

"How very considerate," Bertrand said in that dryly amused voice which Ernest found somehow delightful. Bertrand reached a hand out to the back of his head to pull the ribbon off but Ernest said quickly, his hand catching Bertrand's wrist, "Let me."

"Thanks."

One hand holding Bertrand at the wrist, another carefully reaching for the ribbon, Ernest slowly pulled the ribbon off.  Then his left hand, still on the right wrist of Bertrand, lowered slowly and moved in the direction of the other arm of Bertrand's.

"You know, you’re not exactly subtle in your intentions," Bertrand commented.

"You wound me, darling," Ernest said, a fake pout on his lips which Bertrand couldn’t really see right now but could definitely hear it. The hand holding the ribbon quickly grabbed hold of Bertrand’s left wrist, and soon enough the two arms were side by side.

"Only because I had expected the utmost subtlety from you," Bertrand said in a deliberately reassuring, overly sweetly sincere voice as Ernest tied his wrists together with the ribbon, biting back a laugh.

"You must find time to teach me that, then," Ernest suggested as he finished the tying. "Because I suspect right now is rather inconvenient."

"Undoubtedly," Bertrand agreed. "As we both have another matter on hand."

"Not exactly," Ernest pointed out pleasantly. Reasonably. "Sure, I have another matter on hand I would need to handle, but in your case, I don't think you’re in the position to  _handle_  anything, as your hands are rather … tied in this matter."

"I suppose you make a good point," Bertrand conceded, his lips pulling upwards slightly. Ernest resisted the urge to lean in to kiss him, inhaling deeply to press the urge down.

Bertrand’s smile widened, as if he realized what just happened, which was very possible that he did, Ernest supposed. An observant person didn’t need to  _see_  the room to  _read_  the room.

Ignoring the knowing smile in front of him, Ernest said, "Alright - lie down."

 

_ After _

Ernest untied the ribbon slowly. "There you go," he said, voice still a little breathy.

Bertrand took the blindfold off, squinting slightly, "Was the room this bright before?"

“I should hope so,” Ernest said easily. "Else that would mean there’s something wrong with the lights and I would have to get someone to fix it. Here, your glasses."

"Thanks," Bertrand said, putting his glasses on. They met each other's eyes both smiled at wryly at the same time. "Is my hair in a state that I could go meet up with associates without them questioning where I have been?"

"It’s handsome in a very ruffled way, so, no," Ernest said, "but, let me help." He stood up and grabbed a hairbrush from nearby, and then came back and started combing through Bertrand's hair, and taking the ribbon at the same time. "I’m rather good with a ribbon, as you’ve seen."

"Really? Thought you made sure I couldn't have seen." Bertrand drawled, amused.

"Okay, fine, I did. And yet _someone_ considered that not subtle enough," E sighed dramatically, finishing tying Bertrand's hair into a ponytail.

"Well, I did figure out your intentions," Bertrand pointed out amicably.

Ernest laughed, and did lean in to kiss him this time. "Well, it’s been a pleasure, see you next time?"

"Of course."

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hi on tumblr](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com)


End file.
